Binary Stars and Revelations
by islndgurl777
Summary: When Killian says the L-word, Emma spends a lot of time contemplating her past and current loves and how they relate to certain celestial bodies.


**A/N: As always, I own nothing whatsoever about these lovely creatures. I just go where my Muse takes me. Incidentally, that's the band I took inspiration from for this title.**

**Also, many thanks to my bestie Kaitlyn for a quick beta. **

Binary Stars and Revelations

Emma sits at the kitchen counter, soft morning light filtering through the windows, tapping her fingers in a random pattern as she sips her third cup of coffee of the day. Her gaze is aimed toward the refrigerator, but her eyes are a little glazed. She's not thinking about what to make for breakfast, or what they need to get from the store later today.

Her thoughts are centered on a certain leather-loving _someone_ who just so happens to be lying in her bed.

A certain one-handed pirate who is sure to wake up soon.

And possibly expect some kind of reaction to the words he'd whispered into her ear as they'd drifted off to sleep last night.

Well, _he_ drifted off. Emma not so much, especially after hearing his soft, "I love you," just as she was slipping into a nice, post-sex mini-coma.

No way could she sleep after _that_.

Emma groans, bringing her fingers up to massage her temple as she pushes her coffee away. She feels like an idiot.

_Of course_ he loves her. When he'd come to find her in New York, he'd tried to kiss her to help restore her memories. He'd been trying True Love's Kiss. "I was hoping you felt as I did," he'd said. He'd hoped she loved him.

Still, she muses, shaking her head as she dumps the rest of her coffee down the drain. Why had he chosen last night to say it for the first time? And right after sex? A lot of people would put such a confession, said in a state of post-coital bliss, down to heat of the moment, and dismiss it as untrue.

But Emma knows it's true. She felt the pure honesty in his voice as he told her.

"Glad to know you heard me then, love," Killian says, jolting Emma out of her musings.

She turns to see him leaning in the doorway, shirtless, his leather trousers untied and loose around his hips. "How much of that did I say aloud?" she asks, wincing.

He grins widely and shrugs. "Not a lot, just a few keywords. Mostly I can tell from the state of the coffee machine and the set of your shoulders." He comes forward and pointedly shakes the nearly-empty coffee pot. "You are an open book, Emma."

He puts the coffee pot back on the counter and rests his forehead on hers. "I didn't mean for it to frighten you."

Emma sets her hands on his chest as he pulls her closer, hand and hook on her hips. "It didn't _frighten_ me," she says with more force than she meant to use.

He lifts a single brow in argument.

"Alright, maybe it caused me to go into a rather prolonged state of self-reflection, but it didn't _frighten_ me."

"And what, pray tell, were you pondering for what seems to be…" he eyes the level of coffee left in the pot. "Nearly two hours, and I suspect for a significant amount of time before that?"

Emma huffs and steps away, dragging her hands down his arms to grip his wrists. "You should sit down for this."

"Sounds serious," he says, allowing himself to be pushed into one of the seats at the counter. Emma glares at his flippant tone. He grins, breathes deep, and schools his features. "So sorry, love. You were saying?" There's a twinkle in his eye that makes her lips twitch.

She steps away from him, rests her hands on her hips, and licks her lips. She shakes her head, drops her hands to her sides, and breathes out slowly. She shifts slightly closer, moves to slip her hands into her pockets, belatedly remembers that she's having this conversation in her pajamas, and glares at the pirate sitting in front of her, who is utterly failing to contain his glee at her inability to voice herself.

"Emma," he murmurs, shifting to the edge of his seat to get closer to her and taking her left hand in his right. "It can't be that bad." He squeezes her hand in support and nods at her to continue.

"Neal was the love of my life," she blurts, tightening her grip on his hand when she feels him starting to slip away. She shakes her head, biting her lip in case other wrongly-phrased words start to spill out. "When I was young, I read a lot of stories. Living how I did in the foster system, in and out of homes, I wasn't…" She takes a deep breath and lifts her gaze, wondering when she stopped looking Killian in the eyes. "I wasn't happy, to say the least. Books and stories and _fairy tales_," she says with a derisive snort that makes his lips quirk, "were an escape. They allowed me to fantasize about a dashing young man taking me away from the life I lived. Someone charming, and smart, and charismatic. Someone to love me. Neal was that for me. I was in love with him—huge, epic, storybook-love—and I trusted him with all I had."

The next part is what she's struggling the most to put words to. Killian squeezes her hand and she takes a breath to continue. "The love I had for him…I was sixteen, Killian, still just a kid. I had been living on the streets, but I had no idea about real life, about real love, about how people who truly love each other are supposed to act towards one another." She shakes her head, sure she's not explaining this correctly.

Maybe a different approach will work. "My mom's been telling me about her time as a bandit and how she met my dad. The thing is, she was a strong person before she met him, and she didn't let him change her. She didn't let the feelings she had for him overwhelm her to the point where she lost all judgment on everything else. That's how I felt with Neal. Looking back, I can tell the love I had for him was a teenager's fantasy. When I say Neal was the love of my life, I mean that's the way I saw it when we were together. The love I felt for him was all-consuming. That's why it hurt so badly when he abandoned me. He was all I had and he left."

Killian's eyes bore into hers, encouraging her to finish. She smiles and sways closer. "It's not supposed to be like that. It's not some bullshit 'soulmates' nonsense where two people complete each other. You're supposed to be a whole person all on your own, and then maybe, one day, someone comes along, a whole person all on their own as well, and they understand you like no one ever has before, but you don't consume each other with your love. Love isn't supposed to be a black hole; it should be…a binary star system," she finally settles on with a soft smile.

Killian is a sailor; he knows all about the stars, but he's still a little hazy on what exactly Emma's trying to say. "Okay," he lets out slowly. "So what exactly does that mean, love?"

She huffs, a little exasperated that she spent more than three hours trying to figure out how to say this, but she's still screwing it up. "What I'm _saying_ is that people in _real_ love, long-lasting love, are strong in their own right. They don't let the other person consume them. They rely on _each other_ to maintain a balance. I never felt like a binary star with Neal; I felt like something sucked into a black hole. But with you…"

She sees the moment he gets it, the moment he understands. His eyes light up, crinkling at the sides, and his posture straightens. "But with me, love?" he prompts, jiggling her hand and shifting in his seat.

She lets out a soft sigh as her smile widens. "But with you I feel like we are binary stars," she says slowly.

He reels her in by his grip on her hand, wrapping his arms around her when she gets close enough. "You are my companion star, Swan," he whispers into her ear. She grips him tighter, wrapping her legs around his waist as he picks her up to bring her back to the bedroom.

She has one more thing to say to him, but she figures payback is in order. She'll wait to tell him just as he's drifting off to sleep.


End file.
